Dual Origins of Finns Revealed by Y Chromosome Haplotype Variation Rick A
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Am. J. Hum. Genet. 62:1171–1179, 1998 Dual Origins of Finns Revealed by Y Chromosome Haplotype Variation Rick A. Kittles,1 Markus Perola,4 Leena Peltonen,4 Andrew W. Bergen,2 Richard A. Aragon,2 Matti Virkkunen,5 Markku Linnoila,3 David Goldman,2 and Jeffrey C. Long1 1Section on Population Genetics and Linkage, 2Laboratory of Neurogenetics, and 3Laboratory of Clinical Studies, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda; 4Department of Human Molecular Genetics, National Public Health Institute, and 5Department of Psychiatry, University of Helsinki, Helsinki Summary studies on genetic disorders, has increased rapidly. At present, there are 133 rare genetic diseases that are more The Finnish population has often been viewed as an prevalent in Finland than in other populations (de la isolate founded 2,000 years ago via a route across the Chapelle 1993). The high prevalence of these rare dis- Gulf of Finland. The founding event has been charac- eases has been attributed to founder effects resulting terized as involving a limited number of homogeneous from Finland’s unique population history. This unique- founders, isolation, and subsequent rapid population ness is conspicuously reflected by the fact that, unlike growth. Despite the purported isolation of the popula- most other Europeans, Finns do not speak an Indo-Eur- tion, levels of gene diversity for the Finns at autosomal opean language. Finnish is a member dialect of the Uralic and mitochondrial DNA loci are indistinguishable from language family, whose only other speakers within Eu- those of other Europeans.
[Show full text]